The Labor enquirer., 1887-05-21
fARRESTED!
w. c. Owen Lays the Hand Of
Truth Upon a Lying
Idea
CONSERVATISM EXAMINED.
Let the Truth and The Whole Truth
BE Fearlessly Spoken
Out.
For the Enquirer.

For the Enquirer.
A curious spectacle this that the close of
the nineteenth century is presenting to a
wondering world! From the easternmost
plains of Siberia, where Nihilist organi-
zation is said to be in full working order
to the Atlantic-washed shores of Ireland,
the same phenomenon-individual revolt.
In Russia men of every rank k,-and usually
of ripe intellectual culture, arming them
selves with bombs, distributing literature
of the most inhammatory type, recklessly
facing death and an exile that is to them
worse than death, to stir the people to ac-
tive revolt. In Germany, in Austria, in
Italy and in Spain the same story, though
slightly modified, the pressure of the
ruling powers being somewhat less intense.
In France and in England the same, with
further notifications; thousands willingly
sacrificing everything on the altar of the
Social Revolution. In Ireland a whole
country, undeterred by the heavy punish
Inents which one of the most relentless
governments in existence has inflicted in
the past, seems ready to proceed to any ex-
tremity in order to bring about a change.
Cross the Atlantic to our own country,
and the same picture is presented for our
study. Not single feature in fact is
missing. Within the last twelve months
we have been presented with every phase
of the European struggle, from the Chi
cago and San Francisco bombs to the or
binary labor riots that have famed out in
hundred different places to be quenched
in blood.
."Madmen!' some say; "blOOd-thirsty
fiends!" "traitorsm "murderers!"-thev vo-
cabulary exhausts itself. But with every
speaker there is another thought, which is
not generally voiced, but which is felt all
the more keenly-'men terribly in earn
est" Terribly in earnest, and therefore
unquestionably sincere; men of different
lights, but acting sternly and determinedly
according to their lights. If some have
struck to overturn an empire, and some to
overthrow far mightier pOwer--a sys-
tem-others have struck just as fearlessly
TO win some petty trade victory, in which
mere matter of few hundred dollars
was involved. The touch of nature that
makes them all kin is the sincerity y of these
men; the absolute truthfulness with which
they all live up-even to the point of dying
for ito their conception of what is true
and just. And this is precisely what sets
this century apart from all its predeces-
sors. that it is turning its back upon
shams, and developing yearning for the
true. Who misses this, misses the whole
philosophy of its history.
Yet for all the proofs that we have given,
we dare not trust them; uncompromising
as they have shown themselves, we, our
selves, still compromise; and industriously
feed them on compromises. We say that
the people are not yet prepared for the
whole truth, just as the pro-slavery advo-
cate argues that liberty is good, but that
the slaves are not yet ready for it; we
seek to gain our ends by roundabout
paths, and thereby confess that we are
still the obedient followers of generations
who have been nursed in the lap of Jesu-
itical diplomacy. We mutter half truths,
and are astounded that people do not rush
enthusiastically to lay down their lives for
them; whereas in reality half truth is
like flickering electric light casting black
shadows all around it.
Turn to game, of which we are only
spectators, and therefore impartial critics,
if you would see the fearful evils of lack
ing the courage to speak out. Does any
one who has studied the Irish question
doubt for one moment that the Irish mean
to appropriate their landlords and get
back the land without one penny of COM
pensation: Yet it has taken years of riot,
of assassination, of incendiarism, to make
the English masses understand this clearly,
simply because the Irish would not speak
out, would on the contrary-and still do
by their mouthpieces in parliament-stu-
diously endeavor to conceal the truth.
To-day for the first time the landless mil
lions in England are beginning to- catch
glimmering of the real facts, and ex-
actly in proportion as they clearly per-
ceive them are they rushing to lock arms
with their Irish brethren in what they
clearly understand is theft common fight.
All the incalculab!e physical and mental
suffering that these years of struggle have
brought on this unhappy people would